


Tears of an Angel

by MsThunderFrost



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A Tale of Two Cities References, Attempt at Humor, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop, Charles Dickens References, Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Hurt Crowley, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Possessive Crowley, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reading Aloud, Snakes, Suicidal Thoughts, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), aggressive cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 20:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19325317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsThunderFrost/pseuds/MsThunderFrost
Summary: In the weeks following the not-Apocalypse, Aziraphale discovers that Crowley is definitelynotokay with the fact that he almost lost his angel.ORAziraphale tells Crowley why he rejected his confession at the end of episode 3.





	Tears of an Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Suicidal Actions/Thoughts are briefly mentioned near the end of the fic--please heed the tags and be warned!!

Crowley is a cuddler. And not the sort that casually rests their chin on your shoulder and slinks their arms around your waist when you’re in the kitchen, elbow-deep in hot, sudsy dishwater, scrubbing away at that one spectacularly stubborn bit of dried food that seems to have fused with the plate (and yes, he very well _could_ just miracle it away, but that seemed rather like admitting defeat to the perfectionist angel) or yawns dramatically as they not so subtly slide an arm around your shoulders while you shovel obscenely large handfuls of popcorn (positively _glistening_ with movie theatre butter—is there really any other way to eat it?—if Aziraphale were human, he’s rather certain he would’ve had a coronary by now) into your mouth and stare, wide-eyed at a particularly boring movie that, not unlike a train wreck, you cannot seem to tear your eyes away from…

Okay, to be honest, he totally is. And, honestly, most days Aziraphale doesn’t mind. Whoever said that demons were wordsmiths had never seen a demon who’d laid his heart on the line, only to be brutally shot down by the angel he’d been pining over for _millennia_ , only to subsequently discover that said angel had up and died (not really) after telling said angel (in a rather roundabout way) to go fuck himself…Crowley didn’t _talk_ about his emotions. Instead, he insisted on maintaining three points of contact with Aziraphale at any given moment, lest he start to experience… _withdrawal._

Crowley in withdrawal was a truly terrifying sight. He starts obeying the speed limit and cooing at small, cuddly animals. If the Apocalypse hadn’t just not-happened a few weeks ago, he’d say that the end of the world was nigh.

But then…then there are those days where Crowley channels his inner-snake and wraps himself around him like a second skin, squeezing so tight that Aziraphale would have trouble breathing if…you know…he actually _needed_ to breathe. It’s not so much cuddling as it is attempting to assimilate the angel’s body into his own.

They are lying together now. Or, rather, Crowley is twisted around Aziraphale’s body in a way that should not have been physically possible and Aziraphale is attempting to maintain enough motion in his arms to hold his novel at just the right angle to see above the demon’s head, which is obscuring more than three-quarters of the angel’s field of vision, and occasionally turn the page. His hot chocolate grows cold on the bedside table, Crowley’s lavender-lemonade cocktail (Aziraphale had read in a book somewhere that lavender was a natural remedy for anxiety, and while Crowley didn’t put much stock in that ‘natural health’ bullshit, he had to admit, after six cocktails that were more vodka than lemonade he was wont to feel much of _anything_ ) now more melted ice than liquor. He’s tried, more than once, to subtly suggest that they can cuddle without being quite so _close_. Crowley had turned a brilliant shade of red and spluttered indignantly that they were _not_ cuddling.

They were totally cuddling.

It is not so much that Aziraphale doesn’t understand _why_ it is happening, but more than he wishes there was something he could do to make the demon feel secure enough to understand that it didn’t _need_ to. He is well aware that any attempt to discuss the matter directly will be immediately shot down—the closest that Crowley ever came to ‘bearing his soul’ to him, as it were, was when he thought he was a pain-and-alcohol induced hallucination. The snake would much sooner go hopping through a bloody church than admit that he’d caught feelings for an angel—a bloody _angel_ , of all things—and that those feelings had made him _soft_. Soft enough to be scared that the one thing that made his eternal damnation bearable had been brutally snatched away while his back was turned. All those millennia he’d spent saving the angel from himself, and the one time it _truly_ mattered, the one time Aziraphale _truly_ needed him, he was nowhere to be found.

Okay, so that wasn’t necessarily true. He was, at the time, trying very hard _not_ to be wiped off of the plane of existence for…oh, where to begin? Losing the Antichrist…Intentionally attempting to thwart the Apocalypse…Conspiring with an angel…

Crowley’s breath hitches and Aziraphale begins to read out loud. He’s reading _A Tale of Two Cities_ , which, despite Crowley’s limited attention span for anything not comedic and crass—he was particularly fond of Shakespeare’s _Twelfth Night_ for that very reason—but Crowley has always had a strange sort of fondness for Dickens, or perhaps for Aziraphale reading Dickens _to_ him, and his words have rather the desired effect. He is well into the swing of things, with Darnay having just been arrested for foolishly returning to France in the midst of the Reign of Terror—a shiver chases down the angel’s spine as he remembers his own stint in France during that era; while the guillotine might not have _killed_ him, it definitely would have _hurt_ (and temporary discorporation, as he’d found, could be a real bugger). Crowley is silent for a long while, Aziraphale’s long fingers carding through his loose auburn curls…

“Sydney is a bloody idiot.” Crowley announces suddenly, his voice sullen. Aziraphale pauses to turn his full attention to the fidgety demon, who’d hidden his face away in the angel’s soft, silken pajamas. He began picking at one of the loose buttons…

Aziraphale gently took his hand and guided it away from the button, repairing the damage with a minor miracle. Then, smiling softly, he pressed, “What makes you say that?”

“Lucie, she…she’s _perfect_. A proper ray of sunshine and all that bull hockey. Dickens spends pages and pages going on about how she’s so far out of his league its laughable, and yet the bloody idiot is so far gone for her he’s willing to _die_. Like his sacrifice means _anything_ to her.” Crowley mumbles.

Aziraphale raised one white-blonde eyebrow. “I do believe that you’re missing the point, my dear. Sydney loved her so much that he was willing to do whatever he could to ensure that she could be the one who made her happiest. Even if that meant dying. It’s _tragic_ , yes, but not necessarily idiotic.”

Crowley sniffs rather dramatically, “You know how I feel about tragedies.”

“You _like_ _A Tale of Two Cities_.” Aziraphale reminds him, more than slightly confused. He closes the book, sensing that Crowley is on the verge of an emotional breakthrough and is in need of his full attention.

And, just as he suspected, the fallen angel snaps, “Why couldn’t you just tell me that you loved me when you first figured it out, instead of…instead of… _fuck_!” Crowley yanks himself out of Aziraphale’s arms and storms out of the room. The angel is not too far behind him.

“Instead of _what_ , Crowley?” He has his suspicions, but he needs to hear the demon say it.

“Instead of letting me think that there was something wrong with _me_! Instead of letting me wonder if there was someone else, someone better!” He shuddered, “Instead of letting me think that I’d lost the only being that I can right well stand in this damned eternal existence because I _caught feelings_ …”

Being in love…it wasn’t supposed to hurt this much.

Even now, knowing that his feelings for Aziraphale were whole-heartedly returned…being allowed to hold (and touch and kiss and _feel_ ) the angel whenever the desire arose…safe in the knowledge that, at least for the moment, their lives were not on the line and the fate of the Earth resting upon their shoulders…the fact still remained that Aziraphale had rejected him. Brutally. And the rejection had sent him reeling because Aziraphale wasn’t _supposed_ to turn him down. He’d certainly never done so before. Even when they’d first crossed paths in the Garden of Eden and Aziraphale had discovered that Crowley was the reason God had rather hurriedly sent Adam and Eve packing, he’d offered him a wary sideways glance, made a comment about the weather, and drew him in under the shelter of his wing to keep him dry. Crowley’s pretty sure he’s been a little bit in love with Aziraphale ever since that moment…

Aziraphale’s rejection had hurt worse than his Fall…because Aziraphale was the only one he’d allowed close enough to him to allow himself to be hurt like that after what happened with Her. He trusted Aziraphale, and the angel had yanked out his heart and served it up to him, raw, on a silver platter. And then the angel had gone and died (not really) and Crowley was pretty sure that was it for him, too. A universe without Aziraphale in it, even if Aziraphale _hated_ the very sight of him, was a universe that simply wasn’t worth living in. And someone who had never experienced such an earth-shattering love could never hope to understand why he absolutely _loathed_ Sydney, and Lucie, and the whole damn novel, for that matter,

Aziraphale looks absolutely distraught as he takes the demon’s face in his hand and says, firmly, “Crowley… _please_ …I know that a few flowery words can’t—won’t—change what happened between us. But please, don’t ever think that…” he trails.

Crowley swallows hard, shakes his head, “It’s not like I would have actually done anything, angel.”

“Except we both know that that’s not true. And that absolutely terrifies me.” Because it never occurred to the angel that, with how close Crowley had come to losing _him_ , he’d been every bit as close to losing Crowley. “I just…please, if you ever feel that way again, _come to me_. I’ll listen to you. I’ll be there-,”

Crowley cuts him off with a soft, “You weren’t there when I needed you before.”

Aziraphale is silent for a long while. Then, swallowing hard, he nods and lowers his eyes. “I know. I never should have pushed you away like that. I never should have said what I did. But its said and done and I can’t take it back…no matter how much I might want to.”

“Angel…”

Aziraphale shakes his head, continuing, “But that doesn’t mean that your feelings aren’t important to me. That _you_ aren’t important to me. And if I have to spend the rest of eternity proving that to you, I will. Gladly.”

The demon looks close to tears as he asks, “If that’s true, why couldn’t you tell me before…you know…” he gestures vaguely to the bookshop—when had they gotten all the way downstairs?—and the angel sighs.

“Why can’t you talk about your Fall?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley has absolutely no fucking idea how two and two are supposed to equal five. He says as much.

“What in the bloody hell does my Fall have to do with the price of eggs?” He snaps.

“Everything!” He barks, and, surprisingly, it did.

The Fall had been traumatizing for Crowley. Of course it had. All he’d done was ask a bloody _question_ , and he’d been cast out with the rest of the rebellious angels—casting out being a much _gentler_ term for sending an angel free-falling, the feathers on their blindingly white wings alight with flame, their perfect robes ripping and tearing until only a few scraps remained, pain tearing through their bodies, white hot and blistering, like each and every one of their bones were being rearranged…Yeah, he didn’t particularly like to think on that.

Falling in love with Crowley had been quite a bit like that…without all the fire and searing pain, of course. Up until a few weeks ago, he’d still believed in right and wrong, good and evil…he believed that Gabriel and the others were fighting a just cause, and he was destined to do his part, no matter what his personal feelings might be. He’d never considered that an angel’s moral compass could be slightly skewed…that the Great Plan and the Ineffable Plan were not one in the same…that falling in love with a demon did not necessarily mean that he had to _Fall_. As such, he’d wrestled with the reality of Falling for some time. As it turned out, despite his penchant for ‘walking on the wild side’—after all, he considered cavorting with the demon to be rather wild—the threat of losing the Almighty’s favor was worse than the possibility of simply not existing anymore.

He would not mince words. Falling in love with Crowley had been traumatizing, just as realizing that he _cared_ for the snake in any capacity had been traumatizing. He was scared beyond all reason, and he knew that Crowley was scared too, and it wasn’t fair to push him away…but it was safe. If he shut things down before they could spiral too far out of control, if he could convince Crowley to drop the matter, if he could just convince himself that he would be okay with going an eternity without talking to Crowley again…

“Like I said, I can’t turn back time and change what I said and did on that day. And I would rather like to think that you would prefer it that way, as I dare say neither of us want to relive the not-Apocalypse anytime soon.” Aziraphale tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I thought you _died_.” Crowley says, sounding incredibly tired.

Aziraphale nods, “Yes, well, I can assure you that I am decidedly _not_ planning on dying anytime in the foreseeable future. And should such an event arise, I will do my best to give proper notice so that you might, ahem, _save me_.” _That_ does cause the snake to smile.

“How about _you_ save _my_ arse every once in a blue moon, huh, angel?” Crowley said, the term ‘angel’ sounding decidedly like a term of endearment.

“I believe I did. At the airbase. While you were too busy mourning your car.”

“It’s a good car! They don’t make them like they used to!” Crowley exclaims indignantly.

Aziraphale’s face suddenly softens as he drags Crowley into an unexpected, one-sided hug. “It’s okay if you need to… _hold me_ sometimes.” He says, so soft the demon can barely hear him. “Just as long as you _come_ to me. Don’t shut me out. We’ve spent too long trying to get to this point to let anyone, or anything, take it from us…okay?”

Crowley is silent for a long while, before he wraps his arms around Aziraphale’s middle and squeezes tight enough to leave dark, ugly bruises on human flesh, “…Okay.”


End file.
